When you fertilize, you are attempting to add or replace nutrients that are missing from your soil. So, the first step in deciding how to fertilize is to try to determine what is missing. If nothing is missing or in short supply, then fertilizing will do no good, at best, and can actually be detrimental. There are multiple ways to determine what's needed. One primary tool is a soil fertility test. Your local ag extension office should be able to help you with that for free or for minimal cost. Another way to determine what's missing would be to watch for signs of malnutrition (slow growth, certain leaf discolorations, etc). Now, you will have to know what to look for with that last method. A combination of methods may be the very best way to accomplish this task. Too much of a good thing, can be a very bad thing. Think of fertilizer as vitamin pills. Let's say you want to recommend that a friend of yours take more vitamins. You know your friend is getting some nutrients already (he/she is living) and it's possible that they are eating well-balanced meals or even already taking a multivitamin (your plant's soil already has nutrients in it). Obviously, just giving them a multivitamin (on top of whatever they are already doing) is not necessarily a good idea. Afterall, some nutrients can kill you if you take too much! The same is true for plants. Another thing to look at is that plants generally have an "optimal window" of growth. If they grow too slowly, they are sometimes unable to respond to or outgrow potential problems and diseases. BUT, growing too quickly is also not good! Plants with excessive growth can become lanky and are frequently magnets for pests and diseases. Keep the "Goldilocks Principle" in mind when working with your plants! While we're on the subject of fertility, I must mention compost. Compost is often described as gardener's gold. It's a great way to add nutrients and improve the soil's tilth. It would be hard to add too much of any nutrient with compost, but a little compost can actually do a lot of good. I think of compost as a "safe" fertilizer. Obviously, you could over-do the compost thing, but you'd almost have to be trying to. Adding compost can be as simple as using shredded wood mulch and letting it break down over time, or as stereotypical as having a compost bin and adding cuttings, tablescraps, etc to it. For most cases, I'd recommend adding compost to the top of your soil and letting nature take care of incorporating it into the soil beneath. If you have fresh mulch and wish to add compost, you could always pull back the mulch and add the compost before recovering the area. As for what is "ailing" your plants, it's anyone's guess without information! Pictures and as much detail as possible might give us some clues.

I stopped expecting to learn anything from decorating shows so now I just watch for entertainment. If I only watched shows that catered to my style I'd be waiting a long long time to see french country! Seems like the more flamboyant types are getting their own shows these days...Donna decorates Dallas, Millionaire decorators. Real Housewives shows may have had a bigger impact than I realized. They've even pulled out one of the housewives and given her a show. Are we entering a new era of decorating shows? Remember the influence Trading Spaces had on programming? After that show became popular everyone started showing the homeowners reaction on camera to the finished result. All the shows pitched a tent in the driveway. They built a lot of crap during those years. Could the pendulum be swinging the other extreme where the designers are as over-the-top as their designs?

Do you have a night light? We've always had one because it was easier first off to go in this room and check on him when he was a baby and for feedings if you didn't have to turn on lights and cause all that comotion. Shane's now got to this point where he says he's scared of the dark. So we had to move the light closer to him. He's 2 1/2 and he told us some wild story about a big baby bear in his bedroom at night! LOL Maybe he isn't interested in the pacifier anymore and it's not comforting. Does he have a blanket or stuffed animal or something he loves and clings to? Shane had his blankies at about 1 when he chose these two as his favorite. He sleeps with them every night now and has since then. Is he in a crib or a bed? If he's in a bed, when did you switch? Sometimes they really try you with the bed and it comes in spurts it seems. If that's the case, you just have to continue to be consistant and tell him it's bed time and you're going to bed and he's staying in his. Could he be going to bed too early? Maybe he's getting too much sleep during the day? Or his body clock is just not working with the 8pm bed time. Shane has always been a night owl and his bed time is 11pm. He then sleeps until about 9am and takes a 2 hour nap in the afternoon around 2pm. That's just the schedule he fell into and it's been working. I stay home with him so we have no reason that he has to be up in the morning and the later bedtime works with us. We usually go to bed around the same time. Hope you figure something out! Good luck. ~Leslie~

I had trouble logging on to the KT this morning. I could get onto other GW sites quickly but for some reason this one was hard to load. Someone here asked if we had a 'grab and go' bag in case of an emergency evacuation. Now I'm wondering if we need a back up web site in case GW crashes. I don't post all that often but I do check in several times a day and I'd really miss everyone if it crashed. Maire